Dark and sinister doesn't do it. Many of Goodis's stories are
not dark and sinister; rather, they merely relate hopeless
situations involving losers. Likewise, Charles Williams's
_The Hot Spot_ (one of the greatest noir novels) is neither
dark nor sinister. It is a tale of compulsion and human
weakness that leads to violence and ruin. LIkewise,
Willeford's _The Woman Chaser_ is neither dark nor sinister.
It is a tale of a barely half-grown man's hysteria and its
consequences.
The atmosphere of a noir tale can be practically anything.
What makes it noir is the situations, generally involving a
general lack of hope and of control by the protagonist; the
writer plants those elements into the work by various
methods, which can go from the subtle and ironic (Kafka,
Willeford) to the sincere (Camus), to the overt
(Dostoyevsky), to the truculent (Ellroy, Harrington), to the
slick and matter-of-fact (Starr), to the theatrical
(Highsmith), to the melodramatic (Brewer, Goodis, Thompson)
and so forth.
You cannot strictly define noir by the atmosphere *or* by the
modus operandi of the writer or puppeteer. In my opinion,
everything goes back to the type of story, which always
includes doom and human degradation.
Lastly, as has been said, a noir story need not include a
crime. All that's needed is the certainty from early on that
something very bad is going to happen to the protagonist,
regardless of what he tries to do. It is always a
psychological study. Hardboiled can include that, too, but
it's never the main point. Westlake has created a psycho in
Parker, but it's his actions and adventures that matter to
the reader, not his diseased mind.
No conclusion, I'm afraid.
Best,
MrT
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